


your coffee has gone cold (but i’ll keep you warm)

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Civil War mentions, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Missing Scene, Phil Coulson loves Daisy Johnson A LOT, Romance, Skoulson Romfest 2k16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:02:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5776117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting coffee for each other, and together. It's sort of what they do.</p><p>Skoulson RomFest 2k16: Day 3 - double latte</p>
            </blockquote>





	your coffee has gone cold (but i’ll keep you warm)

“I think this has to be my favorite piece of equipment in your swanky plane.”

 _Swanky_. He likes her choice of word.

“I insisted on one,” he says. The plane itself might be from the 90s but this is the latest coffee-making technology.

“Latte, whenever I want, free,” Skye is commenting. “And all I had to do was agree to help your super shady secret organization. I wish you had told me that before.”

Her smile is easy and flirty but Coulson suspects there’s something underneath.

He knows the girl is not as easy-going as she wants to seem.

He doesn’t ask how she is feeling about the mission, he doesn’t tell her it’s okay to be scared, and that she should definitely be scared in this situation. Part of him wonders if he had let himself get caught up in Skye’s enthusiasm, in her bravery offering to go on an undercover mission without training. He wonders if he would have made that call a year ago. He wonders if he made the right choice letting Ward prep her for the Malta job. Coulson still doesn’t know much about Skye, he can guess a bit (his profiler muscles jumped with joy as soon as he met the girl), things he notices in the way she moves into a room, the way she talks to people, but he can’t guess enough that he can be sure Ward is a good fit for her, and her for him.

“You want some?” she asks him.

She’s still too loosened up around him, which is a bit new and a bit shocking for Coulson, he’s not used to people treating him like a regular person they can just go up and speak to. But he can already see that changing in Skye; he can see responsibility and protocol taking root in her, the way she’s desperate to help out with the mission, it will change how she acts around him, it will stiffen their interactions. He feels a strange pang of regret.

“Let me guess,” she is saying. “You look like a tiny cup of espresso kind of guy. Am I right?”

She is trying a bit too hard to appear upbeat. That means she’s terrified. She hides it well, Coulson is impressed, for someone of her age and without training.

“Impressive,” he says, charmed. “We should train you to be a profiler, not a field agent.”

“Can’t I be both?” 

“I’m both,” he replies, a bit smugly. 

“That settles it, then. That was the plan anyway.”

“What plan?”

She finishes making his coffee, hands him the small cup carefully. Like she’s hesitating to answer. But Coulson still can’t read her that well. It’s frustrating and fascinating, she’s unpredictable.

“Nothing. Just something I told Ward. About wanting to be a field agent like you.”

“There are better agents you should aspire to be like,” he says. Skye raises an eyebrow like she’s trying to gauge if it’s false modesty. It’s not.

“I’m fine. You try to help people. That’s all I want.”

He smiles a bit, not knowing what to say. That has happened more than he expected. She keeps catching him by surprise. Not a bad kind of surprise but - maybe it’s not a great thing for a SHIELD agent, to let people catch him by surprise.

There are things he can read in her face, though.

That she is scared about the mission and she doesn’t want to talk to him about it.

He won’t make her.

“Thank you for the coffee,” he says, and walks away.

 

+

 

He had thought she had gone to get some rest already. But when he goes down to the kitchen (he’s restless, even more so since Mexico, since the Academy and seeing that boy die) she’s still perched over the table, typing away at her computer.

She is a bit startled when she finally notices Coulson (she can get really into it, when she’s working, he noticed that soon) but then her surprise melts into a tired smile. 

“Still tracking Quinn? I thought you were going to take a break.”

She gestures. “I finished with that. The exploit is running, we’ll know if he moves any money. I was just doing Level 1 exams stuff.”

Coulson steps closer, interested.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, the written part stuff.”

He knows Skye knows he already has the results from her physical exam, the field agent qualifications, that she went through with Ward. She knows and Coulson knows she won’t press him - not even in a joke - to tell her how she did. He can feel her (unwarranted) nervousness about the subject, but he knows she won’t ask.

“We have to write a whole mission report.”

“That must be boring.”

“Not really, it’s okay,” she says. Coulson used to enjoy writing mission reports at first, when it was a novelty and he used to get very detailed and scrupulous about it. It got old in a couple of months. But it’s Skye’s first, so he doesn’t blame her.

“What mission did you pick?”

She gives him a funny, concerned look.

“The firefighters’.”

He nods, but not really wanting to get into that, still feeling heavy in his heart when he remembers (even if he’s curious about what Skye might have written about that) so he looks for a way to change the subject. He notices the cup of coffee on the desk is empty.

“Can I get you another one?” he offers.

Skye shakes her head quickly. “You don’t have to. I mean, I want another one but... I can get it myself.”

She acts embarrassed about it, like it’s the first time someone offers to bring her coffee, which can’t be right.

 

+

 

They go down to the kitchen for a coffee.

Suddenly she realizes how much her eyes sting.

“I can’t believe it’s morning already,” Coulson says, taking the words right out of her mouth (she’s missed this, god so much, it felt like a hole somewhere really important in her life).

“Well, you had a lot of explaining to do.”

Coulson groans a bit. Last one, she promises. She doesn’t intend on making him grovel. She’s way too worried for that. They spent the whole night in his office talking, and examining the symbols, and brainstorming theories one after the other. Some of them were pretty out there, but this whole scary deal is pretty out there. The only thing they haven’t covered is the reason Skye hasn’t started carving on the walls like him. After Coulson’s you-might-be-an-alien blunder Skye hadn’t felt like discussing it. And anyway getting him help is more pressing.

She watching him rub his eyes, which are red as well.

There’s no one awake right now (though Skye figures she’ll have to get ready for training in a little while) and the kitchen feels eerily silent with only the noise of their coffee brewing.

When Coulson grabs the mug she notices his hand is shaking a bit.

“So that happens often, doesn’t it?” she asks. He nods. “I noticed a couple of instances, but couldn’t make the connection. I assumed you were just stressed from the whole Director-ing thing. I’m so stupid.”

She _feels_ so stupid. She resents Coulson a bit for making her feel so stupid. Yet she’s too grateful to be here, at six in the morning, sharing a coffee with him and _talking_.

“You’re not stupid,” he tells her. “I was hiding it from you. It’s on me.”

And she can’t really resent him. Not when she remembers how he hugged her, so tenderly, in her father’s abandoned practice, when she was all messed up.

Skye takes the mug from him, wrapping her hand around his fingers to steady him for a moment. Coulson relaxes into her touch, until his hand stops shaking.

 

+

 

She’s still huffing about his behavior when Coulson brings him a cup of coffee to her bunk.

Daisy shoots him a suspicious look.

Undeterred, he comes inside the room. Daisy is sitting cross-legged on her bed, her pillow over the lap, so that she has to look up at him when Coulson speaks.

“A peace offering,” he explains, handing her the coffee.

“Double?”

He nods.

A bit reluctant, but she invites him to grab a chair and sit next to her.

“I wasn’t defending ATCU,” Coulson opens, straight to it.

“Or Roz.”

“Or her,” he concedes. “I just want to be cautious with this. We can’t go accusing without proof.”

Daisy glares at his fucking reasonable tone. Well, of course, he’s not the one being hunted down like an animal.

“So you’re saying I’m reckless and you don’t trust my gut,” Daisy says.

“You _are_ reckless,” he says. “But I wouldn’t have brought you coffee if I didn’t trust your gut, would I.”

Daisy cracks a small smile against her will.

They haven’t really talked in months, and it’s Daisy’s fault just as much as his, and maybe they are irremediably rusty by now. Coulson is full of words she doesn’t want to hear (she gives his left hand a sideways look; she can’t bear him telling her that wasn’t her fault, just like she can’t bear him telling her the Terrigen crystals weren’t her fault either) and she imagines it’s the same for him.

She uncrossed her legs, moving to the edge of the bed, closer to him.

“Something is not right with the ATCU, Coulson,” she says, her tone like they always used to talk, back when she was Skye and they actually talked. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.”

Coulson’s somber expression surprises her. She thought he’d try to defend Roz some more.

“I know,” he says. “I feel the same. That’s why I have every intention of getting to the bottom of this.”

“Here,” she says, raising the mug to him. “Take a sip.”

“Why?”

“To feed the conspiracy theory nut in _you_.”

He doesn’t take the offer, but he gives Daisy an amused smile.

 

+

 

He’s no longer used to doing this with one hand. He was, for a while at the beginning, he got the knack. But now - 

“They still haven’t given you your new hand?” Daisy asks, appearing out of nowhere, startling him.

“Our techs are busy. It’ll take a couple of days.”

Meaning Fitz is not really working on it, focused on him and Simmons at the moment. He’s relieved, if he is being honest. He’s not ready to get another hand right now. It would just look like the one he just left behind, the one -

No, he’s glad for the reprieve, even if it’s just a couple of days.

It makes everything slower, though. Even making himself a coffee.

Daisy watches as he struggles, focusing on her latte and not asking if he needs. She’s good at that. She’s very good at that. But he doesn’t want her to see him without his prosthetic, just as he didn’t want her to see the prosthetic too closely. He knows it’ll remind her it was her mother’s fault and of course, in Daisy’s twisted self-sacrificing mind, that it was her fault.

“I thought you were in the Cocoon,” he comments.

She shakes her head. Coulson thinks, not knowing why, that her hair has grown so long since the summer. “I came back last night.”

He nods. That means Campbell is here too, most certainly. He tries not to feel too bitter about it. He’s happy Daisy has someone, but he’s not happy with the choice. And after what happened to him Coulson is even more apprehensive, sees a relationship like just another opportunity for Daisy to get hurt, even be in danger. 

“I wanted to be around,” she is saying now. Coulson turns to look at her because her voice has changed. “You know. I wanted to be around you.”

She gives him a little sad shrug.

Coulson is nowhere near ready to accept her kindness. Just like he wasn’t ready to accept her comforting touch the day Rosalind was killed. 

But he is not ready to reject her either.

 

+

 

The coffee is bad but at least there are endless refills, Daisy thinks grimly. They’re almost alone in the diner and Coulson is not the most talkative company these days (not with this whole mess, not with that deathless Inhuman bringing Ward’s corpse to mess with them) but he’s still good company. She’s looking at the news on the diner’s screen, rather than the feed on her computer. It’s all flickering images of people like her being denounced as threats to the national security. They say not every gifted individual is a target, they say _not everybody_ , but that only just means _everybody, eventually_. Daisy is her mother’s daughter, she knows.

She feels her powers scratch at the inside of her skin, like they’re trying to break free and betray her presence to the world.

Suddenly he feels Coulson’s hand over hers, stopping her nervous fidgeting.

“It’s okay. It’ll be over soon.”

She is not sure if he means the whole thing or the waiting. The raid on the base caught them outside and on a mission in Alaska, thank god, and not they’re just killing time and looking over their shoulders until the team sends word of a safe place to rendezvous.

“We’ll go home,” he tells her, brushing his thumb across her knuckles. “In a few hours. As soon as we know it’s safe.”

The way he has of saying _home_ only makes things worse, of course. Daisy holds on to his hand, gripping his fingers tightly.

“I don’t want to have to run away,” she tells him. “Please Coulson promise me I won’t have to run away.”

He takes the hand away, looking taken aback.

“I can’t promise you that,” he says.

She nods, looking at the crappy decor of the sad diner around them.

“Promise me something, then,” she tells Coulson. “Whatever you want. You don’t have to mean it.”

Coulson nods back at her.

“I promise that…” he hesitates. “Even if you have to run away, I’ll find a way to get you back.”

Daisy is about to reply but the waitress comes by with her generous refill (the coffee sucks but Daisy has managed to drink it all) and by the time she goes away Daisy can’t remember what it was that she was about to tell Coulson.

She knows it was important.

 

+

 

“What is this?” Coulson says, making a face. “ _Instant_?”

Daisy smiles as she gets her own cup. When was the last time she had heard someone tease her, let alone make her smile? She sits on the thin mattress besides Coulson. She pulls up closer to him and he doesn’t seem to mind. She is starved for closeness and too tired to pretend she’s not.

“And here I was trying to be the perfect host.”

“How are you feeling?” he asks, turning serious. He’s looking at her nose. She wipes it, in case there’s still blood.

“Better. My ears are still ringing.”

“How the hell did they know about the frequency?” Coulson wonders under his breath. He lifts his hand a moment, as if to touch Daisy’s aching head, but he stops himself halfway. She feels a bit disappointed.

“I don’t know but it’s going to make my already difficult life more difficult.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah.”

He can’t promise that but it’s a nice call and response they have developed. We’ll figure it out. Together. Well, yeah, maybe. Maybe someday.

Coulson looks around, taking in the sights of the small space of the van.

“I can’t believe this thing still drives,” he says.

“I can’t believe I managed to track her down.”

“How did you do that?” he asks.

“SHIELD outsourced the garage,” Daisy explains to him. “Since I wasn’t a real live agent then. It was just a question of tracking down which company.”

“I’m glad you’re somewhere… familiar, at least.”

Daisy drops her gaze. His voice sounds a bit guilty but it’s not his fault (not that this ever mattered to Coulson). She couldn’t stay anywhere. Not after they passed the new laws. The van is a bad substitute, but at least it once was _home_. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked for something more ambitious than this vehicle.

“Where would I go?” she says, hopelessly. “I’m not a SHIELD agent anymore. I’m not a leader of a team. I’m just… nothing.”

Coulson stares at her words, frowning. He leaves the coffee on the floor and lifts his hand, this time all the way, to her face.

“You could never be _just nothing_ ,” he tells her. “Trust me on that.”

He drops his hand from her face to her elbow, squeezing her arm a couple of times until Daisy nods at him.

“You should probably get going,” she tells him. She doesn’t think she can stand much more of this, only to lose it for god knows how long. “It would be pretty bad for the Director of SHIELD to be seen with… well, you know.”

“Are you sure you feel okay?” he asks, gesturing towards her temple.

“Just a nasty headache. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look happy but he agrees to leave, crawling towards the door of the van.

“We’ll stay in touch,” he promises.

 _Relatively_ , Daisy thinks.

Coulson turns around, and she hates to see only the back of him these days.

“Hey. Coulson.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just wish next time we have a coffee together was in slightly better circumstances,” she says, sounding painfully wistful to herself.

“Me too,” Coulson tells her.

“Really? You mean that?” she asks, both of them aware what they’re really talking about.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yes.”

 

+

 

“I thought you had abandoned me like a cad,” Daisy says as soon as he comes through the door.

He takes off his scarf and gloves and coat, sitting besides Daisy’s only-just-awake form on the wide bed. His face looks pink-ish from the cold. 

“A cad? No, I was just getting you a latte,” he says, passing the paper cup.

“Double?” she asks, bringing the cup under her nose. He nods. “I made the right choice sleeping with you.”

Coulson smirks a bit. 

“I should have bought you a _grande_ then.”

Daisy chuckles, strokes the side of his face. He’s shaven and he smells of aftershave. He reaches out to kiss Daisy, the coffee between them. When he pushes his tongue inside her mouth Daisy has some serious flashbacks to last night and the way Coulson crawled between her legs and ate her out.

“Your face is warm,” he says when he pulls back.

Well, yeah, of course _now_ it is, Daisy thinks, embarrassed.

“How long do we have?” she asks, slipping her free hand under the sleeve of his loose sweater, stroking his forearm, feeling the soft layer of hair all over it and wishing he would say they have forever.

“Your call,” he says, gesturing towards her bandaged ankle. “As long as you need.”

She pulls him in bed with her, draping her legs over his lap. She blows hot breath on his nose to warm it up and she rubs her fingers along the top of his left forearm, where she knows the prosthetic bothers him. He kisses her mouth, sweet and deep and first-morning-together hungry for the touch. There will be time, hopefully, Daisy thinks. _We’re just beginning_.

“To be on the safe side,” she says, “I think I’m going to need another day to recover.”

He grins, happy with the choice. He wraps his fingers around her bare knee but he disentangles the rest of himself from her.

“I’ll go to the front desk and tell them we’re staying one more night,” he says.

“Don’t forget to bring more coffee,” Daisy tells him, brandishing the empty cup, which she somehow finished between kisses.

Coulson licks his lips, like he’s tasting it. He chuckles a bit at her request, getting all wrinkled around the eyes and mouth and looking older and younger than he is and also looking perfect.

“Of course.”

“And come back quick,” Daisy adds, because if they can’t make some leeway for neediness the morning-after then when the hell. “Don’t abandon me, cad.”

Coulson retraces his steps and walks back to the bed, taking Daisy’s face in his hands and kissing her hard and for a long time. 

He’s not going to stop, she realizes.

All the coffee in the world will get cold before he stops.

 

+

 

“Director?”

Daisy looks up to see Coulson’s head peeking behind the door, rather comically.

She looks down at the stack of files between her hands and then back up at Coulson.

“I’m busy?” she says, apologetic.

He shakes his head and comes inside the office.

“Coffee,” he says, showing her the mug. Which technically is his, but they sort of have joint custody when Daisy can’t find hers.

She frowns, a bit deja-vued. She swears Coulson was just here for this very same purpose.

“Didn’t you just bring me a coffee?”

“That was three hours ago,” he says, pointing at the mug already on the desk. Her mug, ah, there it went. “It’s gone cold.”

“Sorry, I just-”

“It’s okay, you’re busy.”

She leans back on her majestic directorial chair, fixing Coulson a skeptic gaze.

“You never told me there’d be this much paperwork,” she protests.

“Yes, I told you.”

“Well, I didn’t listen.”

“You never do.”

She rolls her eyes. Gives the files another glance. She’s spent here the whole afternoon, studying the reports of their latest manhunt for a powered person the wrong side of abusing his powers. She thought that maybe she went through the files again she could find something everyone else was missing. It feels like a huge waste of time right now and she doesn’t want to go on.

“Do you want the position back?” she jokes.

“Nope,” Coulson replies, quick. “I’m happier as an ex-Director than I ever was as Director.”

“Are there at least any perks to this?”

Coulson pretends to think about it.

“I never got any perks,” he says, fidgeting with the little trinkets on her desk. “No, wait. I got one perk. One time I hooked up with the leader of the Inhumans.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows. 

“Really? That _is_ a perk. Maybe I should go find some sexy Inhuman for myself.”

Coulson shakes his head. “I never said she was sexy.”

She slaps one of the files over his knuckle.

“You’re a pest,” she tells him. “You’re a pest and I’m _working_.”

Coulson walks around the desk and bends over, crouching next to her, kissing her neck. 

“You’re _over_ working,” he says against her skin. “You need the ex-Director to come and distract you from time to time.”

She sighs, letting Coulson drop soft kisses up her jaw. She keeps looking at the files. He’s right but - she can’t let go. She needs to know if they are missing something. Coulson, feeling her unresponsive, pulls back.

“Okay.”

She touches his hair.

“I’m sorry.”

He gets up, waving off her apology.

“I think I’ll head back home,” he tells Daisy. “You’ll probably want something more consistent than a double latte when you finish here.”

“ _If_ I finish here, you mean.”

Coulson simply looks amused at her.

“See you home, Director.”

“See you there, ex-Director.”

He takes her hand in his and leads it to the mug of coffee, wrapping her fingers around it.

“Don’t let this one get cold.”


End file.
